It’s all eyes on the prize for those on the rise

To Bar Nana, the punnily named Seven Dials haunt, to raise a glass for not one, not two, but—can you believe it—three Rising Star years. The Covid kids of 2020 and 2021, of course, did not have the often well-lubricated knees-up The Bookseller usually puts on for the industry’s brightest hopes for the future. (Think a bacchanalia in the court of Caligula, or 10 Downing Street at the height of lockdown.)

Speaking of No 10, there was a frisson of excitement as it was the very day that Carrie Johnson discovered she was going to have to steam the £840-a-roll wallpaper off the grace-and-favour flat, and that she and the “outgoing” PM must move their wedding party from Chequers. Perhaps Chris Pincher can squeeze them into the Friday night £10 buffet and raffle at the Tamworth Conservative Club.    

Adding to the high drama on the night was an undercurrent of tense competition of who could claim the longest journey made in order to get squiffy on free (and unlimited) Aperol Spritzes. Sorry, I mean in order to network with other book trade folk. As the crow flies, Lorraine Levis of W H Smith Ireland wins, but Dublin to London is but a quick Aer Fungus jump. So, spare a thought for Natasha Carthew, whose journey back to Cornwall the following morning was seven hours; I suppose that’s the usual shithousery of GWR’s Paddington to Penzance service.

Competition of a different sort centred around Transworld newbie Bobby Mostyn-Owen, who won the Elliot Page memoir a few months ago (a tip, PRH publicity: don’t put Page and Jordan “Up Yours, Wokies” Peterson on the same table at your next annual showcase). Mostyn-Owen bested three fellow Rising Stars in attendance at that auction. It may sound a lot, but given how many publishers were involved, those in London are only ever a metre away from someone who bid six figures for the book.

I am now contractually obliged by The Bookseller’s commercial team to thank the fine folks at Frankfurt Book Fair, who ponied up half the dough for the bash. The amount consumed by the Rising Stars, alas, now means FBF’s budget has a shortfall and Spain’s Guest of Honour pavilion is going to have to squeeze into 404 Ink’s table at this year’s fair.

Speaking of Frankfurt—yes, there has been a book fair there since the time of Gutenberg, but unquestionably it will be remembered as the birthplace of The Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. We swing into this year’s Diagram season with the suggestions pouring in. Serial odd-title spotter and long-time friend of the Diagram, Graeme Innes-Johnstone—a past winner of the coveted passable bottle of claret as nominator of 2020 champ,
A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path: Animal Metaphors in an Eastern Indonesian Society—has already sent in a couple of belters: Michael Owen Jones’ Frankenstein was a Vegetarian: Essays on Food Choice, Identity and Symbolism; and Lyndsay Bryde and Tommy Mayberry’s RuPedagogies of Realness: Essays on Teaching and Learning with RuPaul’s Drag Race. Keep the oddities coming in, folks, via Bent@thebookseller.com or @HoraceBent. The Diagram shortlist will be revealed on 28th October.